Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!cfisun!lakart!dg From: dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Rerouting considered GOOD Message-ID: <295@lakart.UUCP> Date: 18 Oct 88 00:26:40 GMT References: <2947@uoregon.uoregon.edu> Organization: Lakart Corporation, Newton, MA Lines: 114 From article <2947@uoregon.uoregon.edu>, by dboyes@uoregon.uoregon.edu (David Boyes): >>Figures. I bet rutgers!postmaster has you KILLed too, if he/she/it even >>reads this newsgroup; idealists aren't known for accepting the real world.... > > Sigh. Give Mel a break -- he's trying to make something good happen, > whether everyone else thinks so or not. > >>[a rather hostile comment about map update schemes...] >>Also include a method of getting them into use without requiring sites like >>ncoast to run pathalias every day. We don't all have four-digit Vaxen. (I [ Who said anything about a 4 digit vaxen - see below: lakart is only a 16MHz 68020, comparable in power to 386 machines currently available to run XENIX / SYSV / whatever else is out there in 386 land] >>say this because if active rerouting becomes the accepted way to handle mail, >>ncoast will probably do it as well, being that we pass lots of mail.) > > Having dealt with networks that are totally map-driven (BITNET, for > example), it *IS* possible to have reasonably* up-to-date maps, > PROVIDED someone takes the time and effort to do so. With BITNET, > where if you aren't in the routing tables, you CAN'T communicate, it's > a matter of necessity. The scheme developed is simple, and I think > someone already suggested it -- a base file and small update files > applied on a periodic basis, usually monthly. Let's look at a script: lakart!dg(work/lk/src)[61]-> cat /usr/lib/uucp/uumap/[ud].* | wc 109269 426979 2783156 [i.e. there are about 3 megs of map data input] lakart!dg(work/lk/src)[62]-> wc /usr/lib/uucp/uumap/UUPATH 16147 32294 840512 /usr/lib/uucp/uumap/UUPATH [and a shade over 8/10 meg of map output data] lakart!dg(work/lk/src)[63]-> grep dopath /usr/lib/crontab 0 7 * * * root /usr/local/dopath [looking at three stars tells a great deal] lakart!dg(work/lk/src)[64]-> cat /usr/local/dopath #! /bin/sh # PATH=.:/bin:/etc:/usr/bin:/usr/local # # first get the new map stuff from comp.mail.maps # umask 022 cd /usr/spool/maps ln /usr/spool/news/comp/mail/maps/* . unshar -c * 2>&1 >/dev/null cp [ud].* /usr/lib/uucp/uumap rm -f * # # Next get the temp stuff out of news.config # cd /usr/lib/uucp/uumap rm -f d.Temp getcon /usr/spool/news/news/config/* >d.Temp # # now build the path file # rm -f UUPATH pathalias u.[A-Z]* d.* u.[a-z]* 2>/dev/null | pathfilt | sort -u > UUPATH # # finally make the index # rm -f Index bm "#N" [du].* | sed 's/:#N/ /' | tr -s '\011, ' ' ' | \ awk '{ for (i = NF; i > 1; --i) printf "%s\t%s\n", $i, $1 }' | \ sort -u > Index # chown uucp * chmod 644 [ud].* UUPATH Index [Well - this does a fair pile of work collecting map data, a pathalias, two sorts, an awk, a bm (highspeed grep), and a whole mess of other work.] lakart!dg(work/lk/src)[65]-> time /usr/local/dopath 245.9u 43.7s 7:22 65% 3+79k 1775+2268io 6pf+1w [But it still only spends 7:22 doing it - and this is only a 68020 machine. I would expect this to really fly on a VAX 780, or one of these high speed RISC machines: Note that this process is quite CPU bound: out of 7:22 (442 seconds) it spends over 1/2 that time running in user mode.] The question I have after the last fifteen minutes of messing around is "Why are people so unwilling to run pathalias on a nightly or even weekly basis?" We do it here on all the maps, on a medium to low end machine, and it still does it all in less than 10 minutes. Conclusion - as was stated above Re: BITNET addressing "IT CAN WORK" but only if people are prepared to put in a little work. For the extreme, running on PC's I'd suggest doing it once a month, (careful with your expires) while eating breakfast on Saturday or something. For my machine at home I don't worry - since I just about have a smart (and very agressive) re-router installed on lakart I don't need it: I just send to lakart!wherever!user, and it gets there. P.S. - for the weak hearted, I doubt if anything will ever be routed via lakart, since it costs DAILY * 2 to jump from any of our neighbours to any other via us, and in all cases there are cheaper paths. However on the subject of routing I would ask the following: when you drop a letter in a mailbox, you just put the address on it. You don't really give a wet slap how the Post Office gets it there, as long as it arrives. Hence, by all means provide a bang path, but what is the paranoia about someone else looking at and saying "I know a better way". As long as your letter gets there what do you care? -- dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough +---+ | +-+-+ ....... !harvard!xait!lakart!dg +-+-+ | AKA: dg%lakart.uucp@harvard.harvard.edu +---+